As with the beginning of any new year, there comes the chore of getting a new calendar for your wall or fridge. Sure one usually arrives in the mail from your friendly neighborhood real estate agency, or you could always shell out for the motif of your choosing from a local calendar boutique.

But the really lucky years are when the perfect calendar just falls right into your lap, as it did with our Japanese writer Ponkotsu the other day. From an associate in Shanghai, he received something in the mail with the words Chinese Dream printed on its front; a calendar that he knew in an instant would become the one of his own dreams too.

Boy, have we ever got a treat coming up for all of you loyal Rocketeers!

To help ring in the new year, our staff is busy putting the finishing touches on a 2015 calendar featuring the classy men of our sister site, the Japanese language edition of RocketNews24. Not wanting to be outdone by all the other “eye candy calendars” out there, our team of Japanese writers have truly gone all out to show their appreciation for all the love and support they’ve received from our readers over the past year.

Get ready to feast your eyes on a sneak preview of what’s about to become the sexiest 2015 calendar ever to grace the internet!

As the internet implodes with the news that Kim Kardashian’s naked posterior is on the front of Paper magazine, we thought we’d jump right on the nudity bandwagon and bring you this exciting missive from the clothes-free front line.

Japanese males, from a young age, seem to be obsessed with the idea of flipping up a pleated skirt. At long last, there is a product, which unapologetically caters to that desire that has long been repressed. The name of that product is: “Skirt-Flipping Calendar 2015” (Sukaato mekuri karendaa 2015).

Have you ever been in a situation where you could have sworn you left an object in a certain place, yet couldn’t find it when you needed it, but it pops up at some unexpected place some time later? Have you ever thought that, perhaps there are tiny people hiding in your room, mischievously fiddling with your things?

That’s probably what fills the mind of Japanese designer and photographer, Tatsuya Tanaka, as he shows in his imaginative portfolio of miniature people having fun among everyday items around us!

Want to go to the least popular prefecture in all of Japan? Of course you do! Pack your bags, you’re going to Shimane!

Though Shimane is home to Izumo Shrine, one of the most significant shrines in all of Japan, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the indescribably beautiful Oki Islands, this particular area of the Chugoku Region gets overlooked by most of Japan. In fact, year after year Shimane is ranked as Japan’s most forgotten and least identifiable prefecture.

But not to worry, that’s where Yoshida-kun, Shimane’s brutally honest mascot, comes in. We’ve seen this fellow before, pointing out Shimane’s shortcomings and proclaiming the area to be the the 47th most famous prefecture in a country that only has 47. Well, he’s back at it again with the Shimane x Takanotsume Super Deluxe Masochism Calendar 2014! Now with 20% more snark.

Time flies by so quickly! In a blink of an eye, about half of January has already gone by. This post might have come slightly late, but if you have yet to get yourself a calendar for the year, here’s an extraordinary one for your consideration!

Known as the world’s most flexible woman, Russian-born contortionist Zlata struts her incredible skills in this 2014 calendar!

I recently took a few days off to visit my hometown in California. In keeping with Japanese norms, I spent most of my time there eating and loafing around my parents’ house (in my defense they have a really nice couch, and the soba noodles my wife makes at New Year’s are amazing).

Reenergized from a week of rest and relaxation, I arrived back in Japan and went to sleep, fully intending to jump out of bed at the crack of dawn and get right to work. But when I woke up around 5:30 a.m., I stopped to reconsider my plan. Given the near-freezing temperature, was crawling out from under my warm blankets really the best choice, health-wise? Shouldn’t I take it easy for a day and make sure I was over my jet-lag? I could always get serious about work the next day, right?

It turns out that not only is New Year’s procrastination common, there’s even a calendar for it, with solid excuses for nothing doing anything printed right there on it.

Aaah, skirt lifting! Those were the days! Running through the hallways at school, twanging bra straps, calling your friends “gay” when they admitted to liking a girl…

If only we could bring a little bit of that revelry back into our adult lives without being arrested or shunned by friends.

Well, thanks to creative designer Kaori Kato’s new “Skirt-lifting Calendar”, from the beginning of 2013 you can lift a highschool girl’s skirt as often as you like without ever risking incarceration or bringing shame on your family…

New York firefighters have been stripping down naked from the waist up for the past 17 years in their famous calendars. For years, Japan has been deprived of their own version of the 12 pages of steamy muscles, but not any longer!

The macho fire fighting men of Okinawa let it all hang out in the 2013 edition of the Okinawa Firefighters Calendar with all proceeds going to a great cause.